Culinary God in Wilderness
Chapter 227 - 175: Hand-Crafting a Bamboo Knife, Exploring the Forest at Night
[OMG, Contestant 39 just quit!]
[What? What? I’m gonna go check it out.]
[It’s true. He looked sick—pale face, listless eyes. Probably from being stuck in the rain.]
[It’s not just him. A lot of the contestants are in bad shape. Good thing the storm stopped when it did. If it had lasted another two or three hours, probably half of them would have been forced to quit.]
[What do you mean, "forced"? The first rule of wilderness survival is to build a shelter. Isn’t that common sense?]
[I think so too. Whose fault is it if you get soaked because you didn’t build a shelter? They told everyone before the competition that the climate here is unpredictable. One minute it’s scorching sun, the next it could be a downpour.]
[That’s why I like watching Lin’s stream. He’s not like those North American contestants with their weird overconfidence, always acting like they’re the best in the world. He’s extremely careful and cautious, trying his best not to make mistakes. That’s the right attitude for wilderness survival.]
[You know, now that you mention it, that’s true. I have two colleagues from Great Xia who are just like that. They’re usually quiet and don’t try to show off, but when they work, they’re incredibly serious and always do an excellent job.]
Lin Chen had little interest in the audience’s idle chatter. His focus was entirely on the contestant who had just quit, Number 39.
’Go on and quit. The more, the better,’ he thought. ’The sooner this ends, the better. I really don’t want to be out here surviving for a full three months.’
Right now, because he had just arrived, everything was still new, so he still had some expectations for the days to come.
He hadn’t eaten things like Lobster or sea fish yet, so there was still something to look forward to. It didn’t feel so unbearable.
It had been the same way back in Alaska when he first started that survival challenge.
But after a month, that novelty would slowly fade, and life would gradually settle into a dull routine.
Every day after that, the feeling of tedium would grow.
Eventually, he’d lose all motivation, not wanting to do anything but just lie flat.
He stood up and tried listening intently for a moment, but he didn’t hear any strange sounds.
"Looks like they’re far away from me. I can’t even hear the helicopter. Must be at least a few kilometers away."
A contestant quitting causes a big commotion. The nearby contestants would definitely chase the sound of the engine to go scavenge the leftover supplies.
If more than one contestant tried to scavenge, it meant that everyone except the one who succeeded would have made the trip for nothing.
The forest was a muddy mess after the downpour, making it extremely difficult to walk. It would consume far more stamina and energy than usual.
For those contestants who had already been soaked all night, a fruitless trip could very well be the last straw.
"I bet a lot of contestants are heading toward Number 39’s location right now. Any of my friends out there with some free time want to go take a look around and see if I’m right?"
He wasn’t doing anything anyway, so he figured he might as well share his theory with the audience.
And sure enough, a large group of curious viewers immediately left his stream to go check out the other channels.
Although he couldn’t see the notifications for viewers entering and leaving the channel, he could tell from the significantly slower scroll rate of the comments that he had successfully spurred them into action.
A thought suddenly struck him.
"Oh, right. Can someone go check what Andre is up to right now?"
[I’m on it!]
[Me too.]
[Hang on, I’ll be right back!]
The moment he finished speaking, several comments immediately scrolled across the screen.
’Gossips are the same no matter where you go,’ he thought. His long-time viewers definitely wanted to see him and Andre settle the score in this challenge.
[He’s diving.]
"Oh, diving... What the...??"
Lin Chen nodded subconsciously, but then his eyes widened in disbelief as if he’d just realized something.
"Didn’t they say that guy didn’t build a shelter either? He just threw together a temporary rain cover with some banana leaves. After toughing out the night in those conditions, he still has the energy to go diving?"
[Don’t listen to his nonsense. Andre is swimming near a coral reef by the shore. He’s probably just checking to see what kind of creatures are underwater.]
’Is there a difference?’
Lin Chen silently rolled his eyes.
It was still swimming in the ocean, which, as he knew from deep experience, was one of the most draining aerobic activities.
Basically, swimming for just half an hour was exhausting. An hour of it, and you’d come out feeling extremely sleepy and ravenously hungry.
In any case, there was no way he could go swimming in the sea after getting soaked and staying up all night. That old geezer Andre was already pushing 40, yet his stamina was surprisingly good.
But then again, this was the guy who went winter swimming in the freezing Yukon River in Alaska. What was a tropical sea to him? To him, it probably felt no different from sitting in a sauna.
[Whoa, Andre just speared a fish with a stick!]
[That’s some insane accuracy. I’m gonna go watch too.]
[His back-basket is loaded! Abalone, sea urchins, and a few fish too.]
[Lin, when are you going into the water? I want to see you catch fish too.]
"..."
Lin Chen’s mouth twitched. He pretended he hadn’t seen that comment.
’The camera isn’t pointed at my watch anyway. Who’s going to know I’m looking at the chat box?’
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go in the water. The main issue was that his current skill level was only enough to keep him afloat, and he swam about as fast as a dog-paddling toddler. Diving was completely out of the question.
Going into the ocean with swimming skills like that was no different from making a fool of himself.
’I should probably save up some Happiness Points on land first. I’ll think about it again after I redeem them for Basic Diving Mastery.’
Thinking of this, he pulled up his panel to take a look.